Bhupesh Baghel is Chhattisgarh’s new CM

Raipur: State Congress President Bhupesh Baghel was on Sunday picked the new Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, where the party crushed the BJP in Assembly elections to end its 15-year rule, and will take oath on Monday evening.

Shortly after he was elected the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader by the MLAs at the party office Rajiv Bhavan, Baghel announced: “I am committed to waiving farmers’ bank loans within 10 days.”

He added that the Congress government will unravel the conspiracy that led to the killing by Maoists of top Congress leaders in the Jheeram Valley in Bastar in May 2013 including the then state Congress chief Nandkumar Patel, the veteran V.C. Shukla and Mahendra Karma.

The Congress said on Twitter: “Celebrations are in order in Chhattisgarh as Bhupesh Baghel is appointed CM. We wish him the best as he forms a government of equality, transparency and integrity starting off with farm loan waiver for farmers as we promised.”

Baghel is a powerful leader of the OBC community which makes up 52 per cent of the state’s 2.55 crore population.

The five-time MLA was elected from Patan in Durg district. He was Revenue Minister in Ajit Jogi’s first government in Chhattisgarh that was voted out in 2003.

Baghel was also in the centre-stage of the ousted BJP government’s attacks and was recently jailed for some days in Raipur after he was charge-sheeted by the CBI for his alleged role in the circulation of a sleaze CD against a powerful BJP Minister in Chhattisgarh.

Baghel is credited with leading the party from the front in the fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and scripting the crushing defeat of the 15-year-old regime of Raman Singh.